THE THIRD WAY

I was my birthday last week. When we've gone out recently it has been as a massive group of teachers and interns, most of whom are Americans and (perhaps unsurprisingly) very loud, so for my birthday I decided I wanted to do something a little less... conspicous.

So only seven of us went out; first for some food - to the now famous pie place - and then to a club. The seven of us were myself, strange bearded flatmates past and present, two other teacher friends, and two Russian friends from Obninsk, Sasha and Uri. These last guys had got the train down especially and were staying at my flat that night.

Halfway through the evening, everything was going smoothly. Always a bad sign. We left the pie cafe and made our way to the metro station nearest the club. The club itself, I should tell you, was an alternative/rock club called 'The Third Way'. The place came highly recommended but only one of us had ever been there before and wasn't sure of the way. So, outside the metro, we asked a couple of likely-looking alternative types for directions. They were also going to the club so we followed them.

It was a little farther from the metro than we had expected, so pretty soon my two small-bladdered Russian friends had ducked into an alley to relieved themselves. My friend Rich stayed behind to wait for them, and the other four of us made our way to the club. We got to the club okay, and waited for the others to catch us up. There was no sign of them.

Five minutes passed, and we were starting to get a little concerned. Suddenly an out-of-breath Rich came puffing up the road.

"Your friends! They've been arrested!" he gasped.
"Bloody hell, not again! What for this time?"
"Pissing in an alleyway!"
"But everybody does that..."
"Not when there are two policemen standing six feet away..."
"So where are they now?" I asked. Every other time someone has been 'arrested', they have had to pay a bribe (sorry, fine) and then are let off.
"I don't know," puffed Rich. "They were taken off in a police van..."

Of course, it probably didn't help that my friends had Obninsk, not Moscow papers, and that one of them was originally from the Caucasus.

What could we do? My friends were staying at my flat, but didn't have a key. I wasn't sure they had my mobile number either. We could have gone back to the flat to wait for them, but then decided that they would either 1) be released, and make their way to the club, if they could find it, or (more likely) 2) be stuck in a cell overnight.

So we did what all self-respecting friends would do when their guests had been arrested. We went into the club.

And we did actually had a good, if slightly guilty, time, until about 4am when I got a call on my mobile.

"We've been released!"
"Great. Where are you?"
"Outside your flat. Where the hell are you?"
"Bugger... we'll see you in about an hour..."

To cut a long story short, Sasha and Uri had been taken to the police station, where they had had to pay a fine of 100R each, all they could afford. After some time, they had been released. Only they'd been released at a police station nowhere near where I live or where the club was, at 3am, with no money. Which was very considerate.

Another successful night out then. God knows what would have happened had we been conspicous.

Perhaps I should tell you a little about my new flatmate. As I've already said, he is a Welshman called Gareth. He also went to Nottingham Uni, the same as me. So far so good (apart from the Welsh bit).

Less promising, perhaps, are his Craig David-style beard and his musical sheep thong that he not only wears around the flat (!) but also takes to parties. In fact, he has a variety of thongs and novelty clothes generally. This is a man whose proudest possession is his 'Nobody Knows I'm a Lesbian' t-shirt. Second perhaps is his Watch Out Children: Maniac' t-shirt.

Also, he's not actually called Gareth but Andrew, mutch in the same way my previous flatmate called himself Anthony even though his name was Ryan. So a pattern is emerging.

VICTORY PARK

I went on a nice outing on Saturday, to Victory Park in the far west of Moscow. It's the place where a lot of the city's parades, celebrations and demonstrations are held. There's a parade ground, the obligatory military museum or two, and some park (unsurprisingly).

The metro station to Victory Park is brand new - it only opened this year - and it's good to see that the city is still being creative in the design of the metro stations. Victory Park metro has all the usual marble as well as two fantastically shoddy murals, one to celebrate Hitler's defeat and the other to celebrate Napoleon's. Even though I thought it was a draw. Never mind.

Anyway, the mural of Napoleon has to be seen - he's surrounded by his cronies, with cannon balls scattered at his feet, but the artist got the proportions wrong and it looks like he's enjoying a fun game of ten-pin bowling. It's even better than the statue of Pin-head Peter in St. Petersburg.

Sad fact. The metro station is the deepest in the world (it was built underneath wetland), and so it also has the longest escalator in the world.

Another great thing about Victory Park on a Saturday is that it is a traditional place for wedding parties to come to have their photo taken. Actually, I couldn't move for brides when I was there. Must have seen at least a hundred. Bizarrely, there was a man with a falcon who let brides take their pictures with the bird for a few roubles. There's one for the photo album - 'me in my wedding dress with a falcon on my arm in the middle of the park'.

OBO MNYE

In case you are interested, I passed the teaching course I took over the summer. I tried quite hard to recruit some of my fellow trainees for Language Link in Russia, but strangely enough, they didn't really seem that keen. I can't understand it, but they preferred to go and teach in sunny, safe places like Spain. Strange people.

I also have a new mobile phone, Russian stylee. Well, it's actually my old phone with a Russian sim card which should work out cheaper. My Russian friend had to buy it for me because - in order to buy a sim card - you need to show some official documentation that gives your address. And the only acceptable form of documentation is of course, a passport. Have a look in your passport - does it have your address in? No? Didn't think so.

The silver lining of this is that I can make a load of prank calls and my friend gets arrested! Sweet.

Anyway, I can't tell you my new mobile number here for security reasons but you should have had an e-mail about it. If not, well, I would recommend you send me an SMS but that's not really possible is it? Go and hassle my mum or something. Only kidding mum!

THE SON OF BLOG

Yes, I'm back in Russia again. I probably should have told you a week ago, but you know how it is. We've got no internet at the school at the moment - it was taken away when our director realised that 90% of our traffic was to either mingers.com or hotornot.com. I almost wish I hadn't introduced the other teachers to these sites now. But hopefully this situation is only temporary.

GARETH MARK 2

I have a new flatmate - a Welshman called Gareth. I don't know, I travel a whole continent to get away from one Gareth only to end up living with another one! Seriously, my mum suggested he change his name (my flatmate, not my brother) to avoid confusion. He was surprisingly amenible to this, until my mum volunteered 'Henry', an unfortunate choice (apart from the obvious) as it is the name of his much loved and recently departed pet dog!

Still, Gareth is working alongside me at Skhodnenskaya and is also working in Mitino - basically what I was doing last year. They originally wanted to put him in Khimki, where Patrick Ketchum got shot at and Rich was savaged by Alsatians, so I think things have worked out for the best.